Dr. Yonathan Zohar Will Receive the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Albert Einstein Visiting Professorship Award in 2006

Baltimore, MD- Dr. Yonathan Zohar, Director of UMBI's Center of Marine Biotechnology, will receive the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Albert Einstein Visiting Professorship Award in 2006. Dr. Zohar is set to receive this prestigious award along with 14 other awardees, including a number of Nobel Prize laureates.

A total of 15 world-renown scholars, including six Nobel Prize laureates and one Turing Award winner, will be invited to visit CAS institutes under the prestigious program of the CAS Albert Einstein Visiting Professorship in 2006. The announcement was made recently in Beijing.

Launched in 2004, the Program is designed to enhance the development of its leading scientists, raise the innovation abilities of its staff and strengthen their contacts and exchanges with scientific elites around the world. The Program invites up to 30 world-class scientists each year to visit the Chinese Academy of Sciences for about two weeks. Those eligible for the Program include laureates of the Noble Prize and similar honors. The winners are expected to give academic lectures and carry out academic exchanges. Each April, CAS institutes begin to accept applications for the Program of the next year. The winners are selected by a panel chaired by CAS President, Lu Yongxiang.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences winners in 2006 are: Aaron Ciechanover, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Israel; Avram Hershko, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Israel; Charles Antony Richard Hoare, Microsoft Research in Cambridge, the United Kingdom; Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Department de Physique, Eole Normale Supirieure, Paris, France; Daniel Kahneman, Princeton University, the United States; Douglas C. Wallace, University of California, the United States; John E. Sulston, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, the United Kingdom; Masatoshi Koshiba, University of Tokyo, Japan; Nils Christian Stenseth, University of Oslo, Norway; Randy Gaugler, Rutgers University, the United States; Stanley N. Cohen, Stanford University, the United States; Steve Tanksley, Cornell University, the United States; William H. Schlesinger, Duke University, the United States; Wolfgang Haber, the Technical University Munich, Germany; and, Yonathan Zohar, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, the United Sates.

Professor Yonathan Zohar is the Director of the Center of Marine Biotechnology (COMB), at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI), where he leads a comprehensive multidisciplinary research and development program which applies the tools of modern biology and biotechnology in studying, protecting and enhancing marine and estuarine resources. COMB’s programs range from marine microbial processes and natural products through marine environmental biotechnology to aquaculture and fisheries biotechnology. Dr. Zohar’s own research program aims at understanding the basic biological problems that currently retard the establishment and intensification of marine aquaculture, and at developing biotechnologies to address problems in the fish farming industry and fisheries stock enhancement. His basic and applied research focuses on the physiology, endocrinology and molecular biology of fish reproduction and includes developing biotechnologies for the exogenous manipulation of reproduction and spawning in farmed fish. He is considered one of the world's leading authorities in the field of comparative endocrinology and marine aquaculture and is widely recognized for his pioneering achievements in developing technologies for broodstock management, hatchery production and the intensive farming of commercially important marine fish. Since 1997, he has led COMB's research on developing new generations of fully contained, environmentally compatible technologies for sustainable and cost-effective mariculture. More recently, Dr. Zohar initiated and currently oversees his Center’s highly successful program on blue crab biology, hatchery technologies and stock replenishment.

For more information, contact:
Ms. Zhu Haoquan
CAS Bureau of Personnel and Education
52 Sanlihe Road
Beijing, 100864, China

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Celebrating our 20th anniversary year, UMBI is Maryland's premier biotechnology research institute within the University System of Maryland and was established in 1985. The University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI) consists of five major research and education centers and is dedicated to advancing the frontiers of biotechnology. UMBI’s centers of research include: CARB, the Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology located in Rockville; CBR, the Center for Biosystems Research located in College Park; and COMB, the Center of Marine Biotechnology, MBC, the Medical Biotechnology Center, and IHV, the Institute of Human Virology, all located in Baltimore. For more information, visit www.umbi.umd.edu